Macon Remembers Sandy Hook Victims In Candlelight

Rosa Parks Square in downtown Macon scintillated Wednesday night during a vigil to honor the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting.

The idea originated with Macon's Rhonda Mallory. She approached city councilman Frank Thompkins and asked whether the city could host the vigil.

A few days later, a 10-by-10 foot stage was set up in the shadow of city hall, flanked by pictures of the teachers and students who died at Sandy Hook Elementary school.

"Everywhere in Macon, and all over this country, we are all puzzled as to why this has taken place," said Mallory when she took the stage.

Thompkins led a candle-lighting ceremony in which 20 schoolchildren represented the young lives that were lost, six councilmembers represented the teachers and administrators who dies protecting the students, and two other adults represented the accused killer and his mother.

For Meg Donahue, who attended the vigil, it served as a first step to healing after a national tragedy.

"The fact that we are all bound together in the same kind of grief, in that kind of sadness, then it doesn't matter if we don't know these kids personally. Just the idea that basic human decency is universal, that's pretty comforting," she said.